If you have plans on digital format, it easy to reduce/increase the scale by simply printing it at the scale you want. iE print at %90.If you want to only change one aspect, the length but not the width, you effectively create a different boat. You could just cut the plans at the half way mark and extend some extra lines midship.

Selkie wrote:Is it possible to customise plans to suit individual needs? If so, how difficult is this? What is the best method? As an example...what if you wanted to increase or decrease the beam or length?

Yes.

My partner's kayak, she built the first Mac50, was a slightly shorted version of the one I was paddling at the time, the Seaward (named before Seaward Kayaks Canada became known) and developed from my shorter Coastals. The one I paddle, Mac50L (Lean = thin), is a variant of hers but designed for short light women of which I am light but neither of the other two.

Her one is what one might call a standard sea kayak, beam 62 cm, the one I'm paddling is 51 cm beam.

So the answer is yes, but it helps to know what you are doing. All mine come off full sized patterns. Where I started was from a UK kayak design on very tatty blue print. From that most things have been changed, beam, length, deadrise, deck construction and end shapes. The double, Encore, is a variant of the first singles but probably hard to see the parentage as everything was changed, beam, length, deadrise and cockpit placing. The double's first big trip was a circumnavigation of Vanua Levu, Fiji, a 38 day trip.